I'm fighting so hard not to make some kind of pun here.
Thanks, Zana, for your help.
Tinkz was my volunteer editor and did a great job.
*****
How strange it was to hear birds chirp, or to see an active waterfall, or even to witness a black cat running through the woods. It was even odder when I saw deserted cellphones strewn on the sides of roads. It amazed me that I found valuable laptops in almost perfect condition. People would have died to own them once upon a time. All the technology we garnered since the time of Neanderthals, and it was entirely lost in a matter of weeks.
A year ago terror swept throughout the United States. It didn't take long for the contagion to spread across the ocean. No one knew what to call it, or them. Their brains still worked to an extent. Some even said their hearts continued to beat. Yet they craved flesh, human in particular. So people called them zombies. Very apt, no?
It was unknown what caused it. One day people started eating each other. They couldn't be killed, at least by conventional means. Doctors tried to examine them. The zombies bit their hands off, or tore out their still-pumping hearts.
Scientists attempted to reason with them. They didn't look like the zombies in movies. They didn't look like dead people stupidly and ravenously searching for their next meal. They didn't appear to decay, and they didn't shuffle around like brainless idiots. They could move quite fast, as a matter of fact. They continued to look like our neighbors, our parents, our loved ones. The only difference was their eyes: they were completely void of any emotion.
Some lost their limbs in fights, sure, and that fit in to the picture we had in our imaginations. Strangely that would calm me when I saw them. It was evidence they were unnatural beings that would never be real live people again. I saw my neighbor once, both of his arms missing, and it helped take the guilt away when I chopped off his head.
I watched them kill, feed and walk away as though they hadn't ate most of their victims' necks. It filled me with a rage I never knew I could feel. I wanted to tear out their hearts, to slaughter their families. Unfortunately it wouldn't make a difference. They wouldn't care. They didn't bleed as I did-metaphorically and literally.
And how I bled, watching my family, my friends, the people I'd bonded with since the world went to shit be eaten alive-or worse, become one of them.
So I went off alone, trying to stay alive in an abstract sort of way. I gathered deserted food, carried a backpack filled with weapons and tried to find every book I could.
Reading books filled my time. It was boring waiting to die.
_______
It was raining. I couldn't remember the last time it rained.
I sat near the window in the little cottage I'd found, watching water accumulate in the bottles I'd placed out there weeks before. I'd been desperately hopeful that day, and finally the hope paid off.
A crack of thunder and lightning bolted through the sky. I nearly fell off my chair in fright. Funny that I could still be afraid of something so insignificant.
The storm went through the night. I was grateful for the hypnotic thrum on my roof, but I couldn't sleep. I lay awake; staring at faded posters the previous occupants had left behind, and reveled in the moment of peace. It had been so long since I felt tranquil, and though one of my hands rested stiffly on my knife, my body relaxed more than it ever had since the world died.
I'd nearly fallen asleep when I heard the thud.
My body jolted awake. I listened as the rain beat against the windows. There were no more thudding noises, but I knew that meant nothing. I got up and gathered my things, and then I peered out the bedroom window. All I saw was wet darkness, but I knew they were out there.
The rain most definitely carried my scent. It wouldn't be long before their mindless bodies thumped against the doors and windows, tirelessly working for their next meal.
I quickly pulled my hair back into a high bun and threw my backpack over my shoulder.
Glass broke downstairs. I should have known the cottage wasn't a good place to stay. I'd indulged in a fit of fancy, thinking it was so pretty, that it looked like an illustration in one of the books my grandmother used to read me. Stupid.
The floorboards made a great deal of noise beneath my boots. The zombies below began tearing the place apart, looking for food. For me.
Thankfully I knew about the stairs to the roof. I opened the slat and climbed. The rain blinded me and made it difficult to hold on, but I managed. Eventually, I stood on the slick roof. I knew they weren't far behind me. The side of the cottage had a ladder and I prayed it hadn't fallen.
I located it and nearly cried with relief. The steps were slippery, and I nearly fell a few times, but I made it to the damp earth. I saw them in the windows; their shifting shapes cast shadows across the floor.
"Bastards," I whispered. My fist clenched and my jagged nails tore into my palm.
I was childishly upset that they'd invaded my one moment of quiet. I hated their blank faces, their painless scars and their tattered clothes. For a brief moment I considered bursting into the house and fighting them. It would be a fun way to die.
But not a worthwhile way.
That still mattered to me, even through my despondency, my rage. So I relaxed my fist and turned my back on my brief, bittersweet retreat to the past.
______
Occasionally, I would meet other vagabonds, wandering around for food and comfort. I never spoke to them much. In my experience, they were either violent or crazy, or both. People still fucked. Babies were born. Children were eaten. Men fought over women. Women fought with each other. Life went on for a great deal of them.
I wanted no part of it. Of course there were times I craved another's touch, or I had a particularly tantalizing dream. My memory was kinder to my last boyfriend's sex appeal. He was my first, and we only had sex a few times before he disappeared into a riotous crowd at the train station we fled to. At night when I gazed at the stars, or drifted off in some abandoned bed, I recalled each stroke, each caress. In reality, he hadn't been a great lover, at least by my friends' and raunchy novels' standards.
Joe. Average Joe. He loved baseball and he wore a Yankees t-shirt almost every day. He had reddish hair and faint freckles everywhere. His cock was the biggest thing I'd ever seen. He called my clit a "nub", and my friends and I laughed about it later. He was always horny.
He loved me, I think. When everything fell apart, he rushed to my apartment and dragged me behind him, searching for help. Maybe he just didn't want to be alone, but there was something in his stare when we had sex, when we lay naked in bed and whispered tales of our childhoods.
Now, when I ran into other people or snuck into compounds to steal food, I watched the men from afar with a detached sort of appreciation. Even the most corpulent men slimmed down. And there was grimness to them now, a sort of intense focus that warmed my stomach.
There were times I idly contemplated introducing myself to the men I watched. I imagined rolling around with them, their strong thighs locking against mine as we battled one another to come. I knew why people still fucked: it made them feel alive.
It was fun to daydream, but I knew I'd never do it. It was a cruel joke to hope to connect myself with anyone on a deeper level. I also didn't want to risk bringing a kid into a world where your own mortality was thrust down your throat every time you walked out the door.
So I existed passively, always expecting death around the corner.
____
I was thirsty. Water was miles away, and the sun was stubborn. I went to one of my favorite compounds, intent on sneaking in and grabbing a scant amount of food (too much would be rude). I ran into a woman who lived there once, maybe a few months before, when I was scavenging the woods for food. She was middle-aged and too kind. She wanted me to come back with her. I thanked her and fled.
Every now and then I crept into the compound. I think she knew it, because the people guarding had to have heard me and they never came after me. I figured she warned them.
I wanted to wait until dark but my stomach ached horribly and sparks danced before my eyes. I needed to eat.
I crawled beneath the electric fence into the little tunnel I dug. A few people were guarding the main entrance, chatting amongst themselves. Once I was good to go, I sped toward the barn they kept their food in. No one was watching it, and no one was inside.
They had potatoes. I could have wept. As I shoved things inside my bag, the back of my neck began to prickle. Someone was watching me.
I spun around, and sure enough a man stood near the door, casually watching my every move. I couldn't see his face; he was a black shadow against the sunlight.
"I wondered when you'd come again," he said. His voice was gravelly and emotionless. I held my knife tighter.
"Nate, you're scaring her." The woman I'd met before moved past him. She took my hand, ignoring my flinch and the knife I held in the other hand. The woman began to tut, looking me up and down. "You're so skinny."
"That's a surprise considering she takes all our food."
"Shush, Nate." She stroked my face. I took five steps back. "Why don't I cook you something before you go, sweetheart?"
I cleared my throat and tried to compose myself. "No. Thank you, but no."
The man came into the barn and was illuminated by the stripes of light coming in from the roof. He appeared to be in his early to mid-thirties. He was at least a decade earlier than me. He looked a bit like Viggo Mortensen, I thought. I wondered if he was still alive, too. My mind trailed off, thinking about all the movies I loved and the actors in them. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Bradley Cooper. Leonardo DiCaprio. Were they dragging their own corpses through Hollywood at this very moment? I shuddered.
"So she steals what's not offered, and rejects what is. Interesting."
The woman whipped her head towards him. "If you can't be any help, then just go," she snapped.
His eyes burned into mine. "There's no way in hell I'm leaving you alone with her. She'd stab you for those potatoes."
I remembered the weapon I held in my hand and blushed. I was a lot of things, but I had yet to descend into a murderer.
She snorted. "Please." She looked back at me, softening her face. "Please let me make you a meal. I swear that you'll be free to go afterwards. And you can take as much food with you that you want."
"No." I looked back at the man. "I want to go."
"I won't let that happen," he said. "You'll stay until she makes you something or you leave with nothing."
I dropped the potatoes. "Then I'll leave with nothing."
"No!" His mother picked them up and shoved them back at me. "You can take whatever you want. I just... I wanted to help. I think about you all alone out there and I worry. There's no need for you to be alone. We have plenty of room, and you'll just have to do a few chores. Everyone will give you privacy, I swear to you."
